The Ninja Gaiden series got its start with the 1988 arcade beat-em-up. Though it was a decent enough quartermuncher and saw ports to various microcomputers, it didn’t really set the world on fire. That happened the following year when the NES version, a completely different take on the IP, would hit store shelves and become an absolute icon of the NES library. Since then, the franchise has seen numerous sequels, spinoffs, and collections on various platforms. It has been a while since a true new entry in the franchise has surface and while NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound may not be a numbered sequel, it is a completely original entry.
The game’s narrative is, in the literal sense, a Gaiden (side story) of the events that happen in the original NES game. While Ryu Hayabusa heads to America, his clansman, Kenji, has to handle the Demon invasion happening in Japan. This leads to Kenji and Kumori, a member of the Black Spider Clan (long-time enemies of the Hayabusa Clan) needing to bind together to survive and take on a threat that becomes far larger than either of their clans could handle alone.
It makes for an interesting dynamic but also serves as a key game mechanic.
With Kenji and Kumori’s souls bound together, they are able to employ both their skillsets at various points in the game. Kenji is better at melee, while Kumori’s kunai do well for getting rid of smaller enemies at a distance. Kumori can also perform a short range teleport, allowing her to clear gaps that Kenji would not be able to.
Unlike the recently released NINJA GAIDEN 2 BLACK and the upcoming NINJA GAIDEN 4, this game is a 2D sidescrolling platformer that takes the elements of all the old 2D games and expands upon them. The resulting game is a truly sublime affair that reminded me why I still love video games. So, let’s get into what makes this game great, and a few things that could be fine-tuned to make it even greater.
The first thing I’d like to specifically call out is The Game Kitchen’s inclusion of a suite of accessibility options. These include the ability to slow the game down, reduce the amount of incoming damage, disable Knockback, increase the duration of Hypercharge, and increase the bounce you get from hitting an enemy with a Guillotine attack. These settings are behind a polite message that advises you to give the game a chance as is before turning the settings on. This note also informs you that it will not punish you for making use of these settings.
This sort of thing will upset a certain subset of people on the internet who believe in gatekeeping and telling people how much better they are at games than you. Let me speak directly to those people now: if it bothers you so much that settings exist to allow people to play a game they normally couldn’t, without being treated like “babies” or second-class citizens, I would suggest you re-evaluate your outlook on life.
While I applaud The Game Kitchen for including these settings, there are no provisions for visibility in the game. This is problematic in some areas where it’s easy to lose track of your character against the background, making some platforming sections harder than they really need to be. Other games handle this with an option to dim or blacken the background, leaving only the sprites and platform elements on screen. Something like this on an unbound-by-default hotkey could be very helpful. Aside from that, maybe a vibration cue when you are nearing a ledge may also be something to consider.
Mechanically, NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound is tight and refined. Movement, jumping, climbing, and combat all feel like what a modern 2D interpretation of NINJA GAIDEN ought to feel like. The interplay of building Ki, filling your Rage meter, and balancing melee and ranged attacks feels really good. Gaining Hypercharge to perform instant-kill attacks is also a lot of fun and plays into the game’s resource management, as you might want to hold off for a moment before attacking to get more than one enemy in range.
Throughout the course of the game, you’ll encounter Demon Alters. This is where you’ll switch to using Kumori. These are timed events that will have you looking for a switch or a collectible. Kumori’s energy constantly ticks down here and you’ll need to grab Health Orbs to keep going. There’s no huge penalty for failing, so you can keep trying until you get through. This is the case for dying in general: you’ll respawn at the last checkpoint you crossed, and these checkpoints are pretty generous.
This does not mean that NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound is an easy game. The first few levels will introduce all of the mechanics and let you get familiar with them, but the difficulty increases in a steady but fair way. I never felt that what the game was asking of me was impossible. It was just a matter of figuring out what needed doing, and using the tools the game provides to do it.
NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound has you going through a wide variety of locales across Japan. If you’re familiar with the older 2D games in the series, some of these levels will feel familiar, even though they are new. This really struck a nostalgic chord with me and shows that The Game Kitchen has a firm grasp on the source material. One level evokes the first level of the Master System version. Another evokes the Storm level from NINJA GAIDEN II on the NES. It was a really nice touch.
One thing I would mention, though, is that some levels feel like they are just a bit too long and repetitive. There’s a stage where you’ve got to make your way over a train, and then on the next stage, a convoy of trucks. It just felt a bit too similar too quickly.
Finally, the game’s soundtrack is worth specifically mentioning. The franchise is well-known for its high-quality, emotionally evocative music, and Ragebound does not disappoint. Led by Sergio de Prado and supported by OG’s Keiji Yamagishi, Kaori Nakabai, and Ryuichi Nitta, the soundtrack for Ragebound is a mix of both original and re-interpretations of classic themes. It all fits together very well, keeping you going through the harder levels and adding that extra bit of impact to the cutscenes. It’s a soundtrack worth listening to outside of the game. To put it another way, they nailed it.
NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound is, without a doubt, a fantastic game that modernizes the original formula without losing the soul of what the original games were. Dotemu is quickly becoming the go-to publisher for this kind of retro-modern fusion. If you are a veteran of the NES games, or you’re coming into this one fresh, you’ll be well served by what the game brings to the table.
The Ninja Gaiden series got its start with the 1988 arcade beat-em-up. Though it was a decent enough quartermuncher and saw ports to various microcomputers, it didn’t really set the world on fire. That happened the following year when the…
The Ninja Gaiden series got its start with the 1988 arcade beat-em-up. Though it was a decent enough quartermuncher and saw ports to various microcomputers, it didn’t really set the world on fire. That happened the following year when the NES version, a completely different take on the IP, would hit store shelves and become an absolute icon of the NES library. Since then, the franchise has seen numerous sequels, spinoffs, and collections on various platforms. It has been a while since a true new entry in the franchise has surface and while NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound may not be a numbered sequel, it is a completely original entry.
The game’s narrative is, in the literal sense, a Gaiden (side story) of the events that happen in the original NES game. While Ryu Hayabusa heads to America, his clansman, Kenji, has to handle the Demon invasion happening in Japan. This leads to Kenji and Kumori, a member of the Black Spider Clan (long-time enemies of the Hayabusa Clan) needing to bind together to survive and take on a threat that becomes far larger than either of their clans could handle alone.
It makes for an interesting dynamic but also serves as a key game mechanic.
With Kenji and Kumori’s souls bound together, they are able to employ both their skillsets at various points in the game. Kenji is better at melee, while Kumori’s kunai do well for getting rid of smaller enemies at a distance. Kumori can also perform a short range teleport, allowing her to clear gaps that Kenji would not be able to.
Unlike the recently released NINJA GAIDEN 2 BLACK and the upcoming NINJA GAIDEN 4, this game is a 2D sidescrolling platformer that takes the elements of all the old 2D games and expands upon them. The resulting game is a truly sublime affair that reminded me why I still love video games. So, let’s get into what makes this game great, and a few things that could be fine-tuned to make it even greater.
The first thing I’d like to specifically call out is The Game Kitchen’s inclusion of a suite of accessibility options. These include the ability to slow the game down, reduce the amount of incoming damage, disable Knockback, increase the duration of Hypercharge, and increase the bounce you get from hitting an enemy with a Guillotine attack. These settings are behind a polite message that advises you to give the game a chance as is before turning the settings on. This note also informs you that it will not punish you for making use of these settings.
This sort of thing will upset a certain subset of people on the internet who believe in gatekeeping and telling people how much better they are at games than you. Let me speak directly to those people now: if it bothers you so much that settings exist to allow people to play a game they normally couldn’t, without being treated like “babies” or second-class citizens, I would suggest you re-evaluate your outlook on life.
While I applaud The Game Kitchen for including these settings, there are no provisions for visibility in the game. This is problematic in some areas where it’s easy to lose track of your character against the background, making some platforming sections harder than they really need to be. Other games handle this with an option to dim or blacken the background, leaving only the sprites and platform elements on screen. Something like this on an unbound-by-default hotkey could be very helpful. Aside from that, maybe a vibration cue when you are nearing a ledge may also be something to consider.
Mechanically, NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound is tight and refined. Movement, jumping, climbing, and combat all feel like what a modern 2D interpretation of NINJA GAIDEN ought to feel like. The interplay of building Ki, filling your Rage meter, and balancing melee and ranged attacks feels really good. Gaining Hypercharge to perform instant-kill attacks is also a lot of fun and plays into the game’s resource management, as you might want to hold off for a moment before attacking to get more than one enemy in range.
Throughout the course of the game, you’ll encounter Demon Alters. This is where you’ll switch to using Kumori. These are timed events that will have you looking for a switch or a collectible. Kumori’s energy constantly ticks down here and you’ll need to grab Health Orbs to keep going. There’s no huge penalty for failing, so you can keep trying until you get through. This is the case for dying in general: you’ll respawn at the last checkpoint you crossed, and these checkpoints are pretty generous.
This does not mean that NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound is an easy game. The first few levels will introduce all of the mechanics and let you get familiar with them, but the difficulty increases in a steady but fair way. I never felt that what the game was asking of me was impossible. It was just a matter of figuring out what needed doing, and using the tools the game provides to do it.
NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound has you going through a wide variety of locales across Japan. If you’re familiar with the older 2D games in the series, some of these levels will feel familiar, even though they are new. This really struck a nostalgic chord with me and shows that The Game Kitchen has a firm grasp on the source material. One level evokes the first level of the Master System version. Another evokes the Storm level from NINJA GAIDEN II on the NES. It was a really nice touch.
One thing I would mention, though, is that some levels feel like they are just a bit too long and repetitive. There’s a stage where you’ve got to make your way over a train, and then on the next stage, a convoy of trucks. It just felt a bit too similar too quickly.
Finally, the game’s soundtrack is worth specifically mentioning. The franchise is well-known for its high-quality, emotionally evocative music, and Ragebound does not disappoint. Led by Sergio de Prado and supported by OG’s Keiji Yamagishi, Kaori Nakabai, and Ryuichi Nitta, the soundtrack for Ragebound is a mix of both original and re-interpretations of classic themes. It all fits together very well, keeping you going through the harder levels and adding that extra bit of impact to the cutscenes. It’s a soundtrack worth listening to outside of the game. To put it another way, they nailed it.
NINJA GAIDEN: Ragebound is, without a doubt, a fantastic game that modernizes the original formula without losing the soul of what the original games were. Dotemu is quickly becoming the go-to publisher for this kind of retro-modern fusion. If you are a veteran of the NES games, or you’re coming into this one fresh, you’ll be well served by what the game brings to the table.
by Filippo Dinolfo
